I am still pondering on the contents of a link Potash posted on Twitter a while back, entitled ‘African artists poor unlike their cousins’ by Osei G. Kofi.
Among the many godchildren of Globalization is the art business. It has grown from several hundred million dollars a year into a multi-billion dollar industry in a little over a decade. Bad news is that Africa is missing out on this bonanza.
Today art, especially contemporary art, brings together a vast, growing community of savvy artists, dealers, curators, galleries, museums, auction houses, publishers, film makers and internet designers in an exciting new marketplace where everyone seems to gain enormously. Unfortunately Africa and Africans are sadly locked out of this burgeoning business.
And this time it is not due to any machination by “blood sucking western capitalists” of the post-colonial order but by Africans’ own failure to cotton on to a good thing — even when it stares us in the face.
Kofi exemplified the Art Basel summer 2009 fair as evidence for this observation, citing the works of renowned European, American and Asian artists as well as art collectors of the same origin, juxtaposed by the conspicuous absence of established contemporary African artists, despite the well known African influence on high-end art works. Kofi deducts the reasons to be:
1. Africa has been slow, too slow, in professionalising art…The entire East and Central African region has two commercial galleries of international standards, the venerable Gallery Watatu and its comely upstart, RaMoMa, both in Nairobi.
2. Africans, rich Africans, refuse to buy art. The concept of “putting money on the wall” is alien to them.’
Kofi went on to defend buying art as a ‘gilt-edged investment’ and using Nairobi’s Gallery Watatu, the oldest art gallery in sub-Saharan Africa, as a case in point to demonstrate that had its location been in London, New York or Tokyo, it would not be financially strained.
The big question is: WHY?
The following are brief conversations I had with Potash of A Kenyan Urban Narrative and Young Global of My Global Hustle on Twitter to get you warmed up. I’m posting them here as I’d very much like to move the discussion to a more specific audience that has an interest in African art, in a space that’s not limited by word count.
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What are your views? What do you think explains our [Africans] slowness to (1) professionalise African art and (2) buy African art on the African continent?
8 Comments
5 October, 2009 at 1:05 am
[...] Open Forum::Contemporary African Art « sci-cultura.com/2009/10/05/forum-african-art – view page – cached I am still pondering on the contents of a link Potash posted on Twitter a while back, entitled ‘African artists poor unlike their cousins’ by Osei G. — From the page [...]
23 October, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Finally there is a platform for contemporary African Art during the world’s most important art fair (see http://www.focus10.ch).
So galleries and other art professionals should take advantage of that opportunity and start acting instead of complaing all the time…
5 October, 2009 at 5:14 am
it is a blessing that african art has not joined the global commercial game, and this is a reason why the art is so good, strong, vital, powerful …
it has to do with the motivations for making it .. energy follows intention .. the energy in african art is strong, and better than other places, because the motivations are not money and fame, but expression, power of heart, non-verbal meaning …
count yourselves lucky … the professional art business is a disease
5 October, 2009 at 8:53 am
@gregorylent thanks, i like that a non-linear thinking artist has the first word
i wonder about the value (or lack thereof) that african society puts on art or its own artists.
why is the successful showcase of contemporary african art Africa Remix an initiative of Michel Pigozzi, a Swiss entrepreneur and curator Andre Magnin (as cited in the article by Kofi)?
growing up, i don’t recall art being posed as a possible career. status (an important concept in african society) and ’success’ was associated with being a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc. the only artist i know of from my childhood is Ingrid Mwangi – she is based in Germany. Wangechi Mutu is another amazing kenyan artist – she is based in new york. for me, their work is inspiring. i get a strong sense of their innate desire for expression coming from that non-verbal place that you mention.
gallery watatu and ramoma galleries are admirable in their cause to support local talent and make african art accessible to local people. entrance to ramoma is free despite the hardships they face with funding. although their hearts are evidently in the right place, is their worthy cause sustainable?
does your statement imply that well-intentioned art does not attract monetary return? if money flows like energy, then why not? i feel like this supports the misconception that artists/creatives should be poor….
5 October, 2009 at 7:33 pm
in bali it was once said that they had no word for art, it was so much a part of daily life, not something separate, so that there was no reason to objectify it with a name.
could something like this be going on in africa? art in some ways is a western. maybe grecian roman, concept. in india it was simply part of temple life, inseparable from worship, never commodified. in china it was both a spiritual practice and a measure of refinement. collected perhaps, by the wealthy, but they were also practitioners.
you and i once tweeted about the very strong spiritual content of african art, almost all masks have third eyes, or elements at the crown chakra, for example … when art is for that it is simply too close to reality to be thought of in terms of buying and selling, in my opinion.
the best, and most intense, artists i have ever known were not in the gallery system. they simply did what they did out of need and compulsion and private discovery processes. a couple of them were later discovered, and money came. the others just kept on and were never part of the business of art.
business and money and that entire meme, apart from barter and exchange, the invention of paper money and hedge funds and markets and credit swap defaults and the art market are really alien to agrarian ways of life, though now is 2009 and things have changed irrevocably.
what you have really discovered is the next great art market. right now i am sure you could put together an investment consortium and buy up african art … by 2012 charles saatchi will be showing it in his london gallery, just as he did with chinese art, and is doing soon with indian art …
as a further aside, the high end art market, say, 798 in beijing, or the venice biennale, seem to be undergoing a shakeout, as everything got waaaay too commercial, and love of art simply disappeared under investment thinking, the artists became factories, and a collapse is underway. art critics such as jerry salz and matthew collings are starting to question the art itself in the last year, what are the actual values being expressed…
what will happen in africa? oh, the same thing that happened in bali …. street after street of imitation balinese art, imitating itself, and the life has totally gone out of it .. though cash from tourists flows like water ..
in many ways, artists need protection from the art market … look at australian aboriginal art, gone from totally amazing to simulacrum in 25 years …
love to you, thanks for the space to rant
enjoy, gregory lent
5 October, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Hello my sci-art-sister. (Ahem, holla when we can begin the ‘Kuku Sisterhood of the travelling art’ movie – yeah, I know, lame, but I couldn’t resist)
I do agree with you that there wasn’t much of a cultural impetus for children to consider art as a career, and that does have an impact on demand for contemporary African art. If art was appreciated by society, by the educational system, would we have more of a demand?
I was so blown away by the pieces we saw at RAMOMA, and my other trips to the Godown and various other exhibitions. Most of them were clearly beyond my budget
Speaking from personal experience (i am no art expert heheh) One of my favourite artists is Rix Butama and I consider myself very lucky to have an original piece (well, i gave it away as a special present… but that’s a whole other story) Our artists are rarely feted at home, we need to celebrate them, know their names and at times brag (within reason) that we own their art… However, I think things might be changing. When I went to buy the Rix Butama piece, one of my friends who resides in Kenya said ‘wow, I did not know that there were cool African artists like this, when I can afford it, i will definitely buy his work’ Point is, once more people are exposed to the beauty of contemporary African art, perhaps it would help with making it a more uhmm for lack of a better word – commercial endeavour. I have seen pieces by Peter Kariuki at the CBA bank in Upperhill, so perhaps the big banks are starting to see the value in collecting art. I am not sure if its seen as an investment vehicle though. I would be interested to hear from others whether their is a nascent art economy.
Well, confession time… I have to admit that being a diaspora African, I often feel very conflicted when I see pieces at various museums, both of ‘indigenous, functional, part-of-life art’ like that of the Lega, the Maasai etc and when i see contemporary pieces and sculptures. On one hand, I am happy that I get to enjoy these pieces, but on the other hand I lament the plunder from Africa – Art spirited out of the continent into private collections of those who can afford it. We should have been curating the pieces ourselves and preserving the art…but then again, like Gregory mentioned, the way we experienced art may have been different. Perhaps there is a new generation of African yuppies who will pay good money for art, and in the process create more of a demand. Uh oh, i have rambled… but all in all, i am just saying it starts with us. We need to support our African artists, because we love their work. Do enough of us feel this way that there is a market to make it sustainable?
23 October, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Finally there is a platoorm or Contemporary African Art during the world’s most important Art fair in Basel: http://www.focus10.ch.
Galleries and art professionals should take an advantage of that opportunity and start acting insetad of mourning!
4 November, 2009 at 5:16 pm
[...] my recent post, which was an attempt to dissect the challenges that contemporary African artists face, the good folks at FOCUS10 – Contemporary African Art Fair wrote in to highlight a [...]